The Adventures of Agent 'Angel'
by Jay Puma
Summary: Sky Mobians, winged Mobians, don't venture to the Ground. However, an adventurous tomboy seeks to escape inevitable matrimonial custody by joining a Ground agency... filling up her life with plenty of action stories. Reviews highly appreicated
1. Descent

_Military boots pounded against the metal catwalk. They shouted commands at each other, and spreaded out, oblivious to the hedgehog pressed against to the wall they ran past._  
_"He has sensitive information! Find him!" the commander barked, dismissing his comrads. The hedgehog pressed to the wall pressed something on his wrist. Five minutes began to tick down, and he pressed another button, which flashed for a few moments._  
_Two sets of boots came closer. The hedgehog slid along the right corner as they inspected the area. Glancing up, he found a pipe high enough to conceal him and hold on to. He leapt to it, and bunched his body around it as the two walked underneath him._  
_Another pipe, wide enough to crawl along, was a few inches away. The hedgehog pulled himself onto it, and scanned around for an outer enterance._  
_"Gabriel, it's Blackout," he whispered into the wrist. "I've got it." Static buzzed back. Blackout tapped the computer twice. "Gabriel? Are you there?"_  
_Groaning, he crept along the pipe to see if it led outside. "Gabriel? Is anyone out there?"_

"Alright, Mom, I did some housework," a hedgehog called, nearing towards the back sliding door. "I'm going now."  
"Wait- did you say house-" But Theia Phoenicia stopped dead when she arrived.  
A boy, save for eyelashes and a chest, wearing patched-together pants stood in front of the closet where his father was going to put away the boxes in the front hall.  
"What...are _those?"_ she said, pointing at her waist as if a dead body lay there. "You made _pants, Selene?"_  
"Mom! I hate flying around in a skirt! There's perverted Mobians out there, you know?"  
"They're not perverted. If anything you should be grateful you get attention from a possible husband."  
Selene's face scrunched up, like her mother had bad breath. "No way! I'm not going to be a maid, caretaker and mother for some moron who only thinks me as that! He can make his own stupid sandwich!"  
_"Selene Luminia Phoenicia!_ That's no way to think!" She sighed and closed her eyes. "I know it's possible for you to have such an addiction to flying because of soaring wing bones, but you can't become like that. As a lady, your place-"  
"-is in a house. I'm going to visit Helios now."  
"Well I pray he can put you in your place. Don't come back until its safe."  
Selene ran across the grass into the orange light of the evening and sprung off the edge of it to dive into the sky. Her kite wings extended to their full length and she soared towards the purple tinted clouds, southwest. The wind flowed through her hair and she took in the fresh air with closed eyes. For a Sky Mobian, this was real flying.  
Sky Mobians live among the clouds on floating cities and islands. They have bird wings, which vary from family. Selene inherited a soaring bird's wings, like her brother. Most females don't inherit soaring bird wings.  
_I love flying. I feel so free..._ Another breath and she smelled moisture. When she opened her eyes a drop of water hit her between the eyes. Before she could move her wings so they would drop her, a gust of wind sucked her into the storm clouds and spun her around.  
Lighting illuminated the dark gray area. Winds ripped off some of her feathers as they flipped the hedgehog. Her wings retracted so she could get lower and out of the tempest.  
A black shape was revealed by another lightning. Shaped like a cargo or bomber Mobian aircraft, it was headed to the right of Selene. When she could see details of it, it tinted the cloud red as it bursted. A strong wind pushed her, but other than that she was unharmed.  
A shape fell from the blast and to the earth. _A Mobian?_ Her wings contracted into a dive and she reached out her hands to it. They were passed out for sure, so she reached under the shoulders and clutched the Mobian.  
It was a hedgehog by the quills. He panted, and then breathed, "Anyone..."  
"Hang on, okay?" she said, but he was out now. Her wings still pointing down, she cleared going out from under the swell and soared up into thin clouds. The sky was blue violet and the clouds a lighter shade. There was enough light to see where she was headed, the shape of the island Helios lived on in the distance.  
The dark hedgehog's head still hung down. She tried to stir him, "Hey. Can you hear me?" When he didn't respond, Selene started flapping her wings to get to her brother's faster.  
When some grunts came from the hedgehog, the Sky Mobian began to soar again. He let out a few breaths when he saw where he was, and then let out a "Gabriel?"  
"Are you okay?" He looked up.  
Ruby red eyes stared into her night sky blue ones, like two people at a high school reunion. A gust reminded Selene she was flying and she kept her wings level. "Just hang on, okay? We're almost at my brother's."  
"Who are you?" His voice was like semi-dark chocolate. "An...angel?"  
Selene puffed, "I'm no angel! You Ground Mobians always assume things, don't you?"  
"Huh?"  
"A long time ago, a Ground Mobian saw a Sky Mobian and assumed it was an angel. No one knows what an angel looks like."  
"Right," he glanced away without asking anything else. "I'm fine, by the way. And why did you save me?"  
"That ship exploded, and I saw you fall. I had to see if you were all right."  
"Huh..." the dark hedgehog said. "Well, now that I think about it, my right arm stings a bit. Probably from the blast."  
"We're almost there. I'm gonna set you straight down, so get ready." When she set him down, Selene elevated on a current so she cleared over his head, settling down ahead of him.  
After ringing the doorbell, a golden hedgehog opened the door. Golden falcon wings were in the relaxed position behind him. "Selene," he greeted, hugging his sister. "I miss you all the time, baby sissy, but never expect you to fly out. Hey, neat pants."  
"Helios, hi, um," she sidestepped and her brother's eyes bulged. "His arm stings." The stranger's eyes bulged at the sight of him too. "He's welcome, right?"  
"Oh sure he can."  
As Selene passed by him, the stranger whispered, "She's your sister?"  
Helios replied "You went ahead without anyone knowing? Did you get it?"  
"Of course."  
"You outta thank my sissy she was flying at the right time."  
Pivoting, the girl asked, "You've met before?" The hedgehogs flinched and gave each other glances. "You've been to the Ground?"  
"Can we trust...?" the black and red hedgehog asked.  
"'Course, she's my sissy." To his sister, "I work with Ground Mobians. In fact, I'm the only Sky Mobian there as far as I know." He walked past them into the kitchen. "Sit down and I'll explain."  
The pale gray hedgehog made her way towards the seating area by the window, the Mobian followed, saying, "Thank you for saving me. Um, Helios never said your name."  
The Sky Mobian looked over her right shoulder back at the red warm eyes. "Selene. Yours?"  
"Shadow, Shadow the Hedgehog."

The gray cloud had spread out during the chat, without the lightning and gales. Helios, "Gabriel" to Shadow, carried the Ground Mobian as his sister followed on his right. "Stay close, sissy," he warned. "They might try to intercept us."  
Selene's black and gray wings lifted her up and lowered her down. Why not fly higher? Sky Mobians flew at airplane level, so the likelyhood of seeing one was near impossible. Only binoculars at the level of the tallest point on could spot one then. "You're not going to tell me what the thing is?"  
"Can't. Sorry. Need-to-know-"  
A streak bent back the forearm of his wing, gravity yanking him down. The kite-winged hedgehog dove towards them. After relaying the image of the break in her mind, she grabbed Shadow's right hand and dove again.  
"Wha- What are you doing?!" She could see the dark shape in the mountains, the trejectory perfect for a fowler. "Pull up!"  
She extended her wings and felt a stiff warm shape collide with her radius, a grunt escaping the attacker. Once they went down, she made a smooth slope upward.  
"I am a bird of prey," she declared. "If I was meant to be intimidated, I'd flee; If I was made to be food I would've been eaten in my shell."  
"Are you that bird-like?"  
"Don't you Ground Mobians know a figure of speech when you hear one? I have a white-tailed kite's wings. A huntress!" Trying to see through her whipping hair, she asked, "Which way?"  
Her ears could catch buttons and taps before thunder cracked above them. "We're out of the Vein, so to the left. I'll let you know where the mountain is."  
Tilting the wings, "Am I supposed to drop you off there, too?"  
"No, that's just for the information. It's coming close, get ready to drop me. You can circle it and pick me back up." She pricked her ears and landed with Shadow on the ledge. "Hey! I said-"  
"You don't get it," Selene said, crossing her arms, retracting her wings and tapping her toe. She cued a monstrous gale plowing through the range with her index finger. "See? If I was still in the air, I'd been rammed into a mountain or so spun around that you'd be stranded either way."  
Shadow puffed as he turned away from the Sky Mobian, walking towards a rock pile. After kneeling down, he slid his hands around a brick-like stone and pulled it out, unveiling a metal slot. Shadow clamped his left hand around his wristwatch, and forced it through the slot until clicks sneaked out it before it closed.  
Putting the rock back in place, he asked, "My home's far from here, are you sure you can make it?"  
"Big brother might be there, right?" she asked. "He could be waiting for us."  
"It's worth checking out."

The skies were dark blue, tinting the bottoms of clouds indigo while the large moon made the tops white. Selene was tiring, but she could make it if she soared.  
"Are you all right?" Shadow asked. She was focusing on keeping them in the air, so hummed an okay. "We're almost there. Could you fly under the clouds?"  
Making sure there was no commerical airlines underneath, the Sky Mobian lowered so that the Ground Mobian could get his bearings. "Yeah, We're nearly there. Do you see that grass spot?"  
_Grass spot..._ Her wings tilted to the prejectory to land in the light green field, exhaustion to tilt each degree...  
Selene remembered dropping Shadow, knocking into the ground, being trapped under the weight of the wings, freed then lifted before her neck fell back with a sigh.


	2. The Ground

The sound of birds was uncommon to Sky Mobians who lived in the clouds. They knew bird calls, but actually hearing a chorus of morning birds…

_I'm on the Ground._

In a reflexive motion, Selene sat up with her wings out stretched, like animals flash colors to warn of attack. There was no one in the room...but what was that strange green mass outside the window?

Calming down, she approached the window and the plant outside. It looked like a sort of flowering stalk. The base of the plant was woody, and little green discs sprung from the arms of the base, as did orange spheres. A small bird sang in the plant.

_What is that? _And there wasn't just the wood stalk; among the houses' edges lay flat gray stones connecting the buildings. A bulky wheeled object rolled along a black stretch of earth. Poles from the ground stood over hanging it. The Ground had these wood stalks everywhere. What were they for?

There were strange things in the room, too. A bladed wheel was pinned on the ceiling, and had white orbs sticking out of its center. She pressed herself to the window, afraid her presence might anger it. There was also a black box in the adjacent corner…A decoration?

_I don't know anything about the Ground; I'm a girl, after all. "Girls have no need of learning about the Ground. Our place is the house."_

"Sissy! Are you awake?" Helios! She darted for the door, trying to outrun the blade-wheel, and shut it on it.

Her brother chuckled. "Silly little sissy," he said into her shoulder. "We need to teach you a lot." His wing was wrapped where it was fractured. _He'll be okay._

Pointing to the wheel, "That's a ceiling fan. The little orbs are light bulbs. The Ground has this thing called electricity, and that's why they've got so much strange things." The box was a television, and when you commanded it, it flashed moving pictures on the screen.

"What's this plant?" she asked, pointing to the stalk.

"It's a tree. They come in all shapes and sizes. This is an orange tree."

"It's not orange though."

"No, no, sissy. Look at the round orange fruit. That's an orange." And then there were lampposts and roads and cars, bicycles and telephone poles and…

"It's so overwhelming."

"Believe me," Helios snorted, "it'd been stretched out for us in school."

"Obviously; you're a male." Her brother led her out of the room, which the hallway oversaw the front entrance and the beginning of the hallway underneath. Down the stairs and then he retracted his wings as he put on a long "coat" on to conceal them.

"Remember: We're on the Ground now. We need to appear Groundish." So he forced his sister's wings to her back and opened the front door.

Shadow followed them. "Gabriel. Maybe it's best you go the opposite way." _You can't tell my brother what to-_

"Right. Later sissy." And the gold hedgehog was on his way, leaving the opposite Mobians alone.

"It's for security reasons," he said. "If two groups go different ways, the immediate conclusion is that we have different destinations."

"Who _do_ you work for?" Selene asked. The hedgehog shook his head, leading her to the left of the sidewalk. She clutched the waistline of her scrap work pants. _They said it was top-secret. _In the Sky, Mobians had no hidden organizations from men, of course. Men knew everything. A housewife just knew people from "work" and their wives.

_I wonder what was in Shadow's wristwatch. Probably data from the ship, which must've been from the place the gunman worked for. _The feathers shivered at the idea she was getting into deep trouble. Her mother would be a ghost and her father would be a fire-breathing monster. The grip tightened.

Shadow walked unaffected by the occasional pebble that they trotted over. He had shoes, in Sky Mobius a man's item. _Because only _men_ go outside._

When the fabric was twisted or pulled in one way, the threads would begin to loosen due to the crash course in sewing. The pants were droopy so she had to pull it up when it would expose the front. She was twisting the fabric in fury of the gender-based class system of Sky Mobius-

She fell on her face, without any hint of what she tripped over until the wind blew. Shadow looked back to turn his cheeks pink.

"Yeah… Let's go buy you some pants."

* * *

In the small booth of the dressing room, Selene wriggled some denim pants ("jeans") above shorter cotton pants (A form of Ground Mobian underwear) as she seethed. _I can't believe how _stupid _I'm acting! This is the Ground! Ground Mobians don't twist the belt of their pants!_

She slipped her feet into some casual shoes. _If _this _were the _Sky, _I'd have to be _joined _to Shadow for my entire _life! She stepped out of the booth with the Ground clothes on, cheeks still boiling. The one behind the counter handed Shadow a few coins with a strip of paper.

"What're those?" she mewed at the coins when he came back.

"Money. The coins make up one of these,"- he pulled out a green paper with decorative lining. The corners had the number one placed there. "Helios said Sky Mobians have beads."

_And Mom hasn't given me my chain back. _"You mean- you just bought me these?"

Nodding, he wondered, "What? Is that a bad thing?"

As they walked out of the store, Selene poured out the truth about women in the Sky. Couldn't wear pants. Couldn't cut your hair, unless you were being joined, the equivalent of marriage on the Ground. Being out and about was concerning, and so measures such as confiscating the bead chain had to be taken. When men took interest in women of that sort, it was a blessing. But no man buys items for a woman he's not joined to. "It's sort of like… cheating on your spouse if you buy for another woman," she said. "Or vice-versa. Only same-gender people can pay for each other if they aren't joined."

"So, basically, you love freedom and adventure. Won't let anything stop you, not even your own gender," Shadow wondered. "It's an inspiring tragedy."

Selene hid her cheeks. "Are we there yet?"

Shadow glanced at her for a second. "What's your idea of being a caged bird?"

"What?" She puffed. "Well, if you must know, I'd pull my feathers out for the freedom of doing and wearing what I want and not having to be dominated over a male any day!"

"If you were assigned to do a job to be completed as soon and as quietly as possible, would you do it?"

"A job? Yeah, why not; I sure can't get a job at home unless it's housework!"

"And if you had to protect certain Ground Mobians, you'd do that too?"

"Yeah."

"Or even assassinate people?" Selene raised her eyebrow.

"You mean, _evil _people, right? People without kids or wives?"

Shadow remained a stone figure. "People who've done so much evil and care so little about others. We never target an entire family. In fact, we're usually informed by the relatives and put them under our protection. We're very considerate."

Humming, shifting her weight to the other leg and crossing her arms, Selene studied the hedgehog's red eyes. Unblinking, still, waiting for an answer.

"Deal. Take me to your leader."


End file.
